Royal Scoundrel (Frat Wars #4)

Chapter 1

1

Dash

Rho Kappa Tau is the worst fraternity on campus. They’re all rich, all entitled, and ninety percent of them are white guys with generations of being told they’re God’s gift to the universe.

Archibald Levine the Third is probably the worst of them.

Unfortunately, he’s also the hottest of them too. A total snack with all the confidence of knowing the world was made for him.

“Through here,” Larry says, sneaking into the back of the campus’s swimming center. We heard there’s a Kappa party going down, and while people like us are never on the invitation lists, we always find our way in.

Like vermin.

While the Kappa brothers might be the worst type of people, their deep pockets lead to the best parties.

The back hallways echo with our footsteps, and I have a split second to worry about us having the wrong night when we pass the locker rooms and the telltale sound of music up ahead reaches us.

“Just make sure that I don’t get drunk and think swimming in the pool sounds like a good idea,” Larry says, hand resting on the door to the pool room.

We tap knuckles. “I’ve got your back, man.”

“Okay. Time to drink all the free booze we can get our hands on.”

He pushes through into the pool room, and the place is already wild. People everywhere, including making use of the Olympic-sized swimming pool, a DJ set up on one of the diving board platforms, flashing disco lights that make the room seem like it’s spinning, and there, on a makeshift stage, are the Kappa executives.

Legacies at the university. Deepest pockets on campus. Probably descendants of the Kappa founding fathers too, but what the fuck would I know? I’m just a scholarship kid, trying to live my college life to the fullest, with a hard-on for the asshole smack-bang in the center of the stage.

Archibald Levine is wearing an open robe, showing off his washboard abs and sinfully small swimming trunks that leave nothing to the imagination. They’re in blue and silver, his house colors, and resting on his head is one of those stupid fucking crowns they wear to all their parties. The Kappa execs. Also known as League of Royals.

I hate how attracted I am to a twat like Levine. He knows he’s hot, and he has women hanging off him at every party. He’s alone now, but it won’t take him long.

It’s near impossible to pull my gaze away from the guy and focus back on finding the liquor. I nod hello to people I’m friendly with as I duck through the crowd. I might be invisible to Levine, but thankfully, to the mere mortals on campus, I’m a bit of a catch. Hooking up has never been easier than at college, and I’ll take any chance I get to down a few drinks, get sloppy with someone, and then kiss them goodbye the next day, knowing I don’t have to worry about their expectations being anything more than one night.

I find a wet bar stocked with bottles of just about every poison you could want. Tequila was my friend last weekend. It’s the drink behind the rooftop strip show I put on that I don’t exactly regret but probably wouldn’t have done if my brain had been online. Given the large body of water behind me, I skip that choice and go for the rum.

No headaches, no vomiting, just a happy high until it makes me pass out early. Which, considering I can’t get my brain off Levine, wrapping up the night sooner than later sounds like a fantastic option.

Grudgingly, I have to admit the party was worth sneaking into. Like all of their parties. The music is a good vibe, everyone’s dancing, and even though Larry’s gone and ditched me, there are no strangers on the dance floor. I dance with anyone who comes my way, rum sliding down my throat easily.

Splashes and squeals come from the water, laughter rising over the thump of the bass taking over my brain. This is what college is all about. This. The fun, the life, you worry about tomorrow when it comes.

There’s a break in the crowd, and when my eyes flick open, I have a direct line of sight to Levine. He’s doing that bro-dance, one fist in the air, knees bouncing to the bass as he looks out over the crowd below him.

My breath is knocked clean out of my lungs when his eyes catch mine?—

—and pass right over me.

Fucker.

Fucking elitist fucker.

I throw back the rest of my drink, brain more than a little bubbly now, and turn to the guy grinding against my side. I don’t even bother to check him out before I slam my mouth down over his and get this aggressive, frustrated energy out of me.

I don’t want to say I have a crush because I don’t know anything about Levine other than I’m pretty sure I hate everything about what he represents. My attachment has nothing to do with him as a person and everything to do with sex. Hot, filthy, fantasy sex.

He’d probably be horrified if he knew the things dream him had done to me. If he knew how many times I’d made him come in my mind. The way those high cheekbones stained red. The way his glossy copper curls turned brown when they were damp with sweat. The way I obsessively tasted every inch of his body I could reach.

Urg, my dick is hard as a mallet as I kiss the stranger in front of me. He tries to wrap his arms around me, but I knock them back, grab his jaw, and tilt his head back to kiss him deeper.

This isn’t spooning and exchanging names and talking into the morning. This is me needing to get off. To get this overpowering urge for Levine out of my system.

I break my mouth from this guy’s but don’t go far.

“You wanna suck my dick?”

“Sure.”

That’s all I need. I take his hand in mine and drag him from the dance floor and toward the exit door closest to us. It’s on the opposite side to the one we came in through, but I assume it leads to another hall, and I’m right. There are a few people around, so we keep going past them, my dick trapped and frustrated in my trunks. The first turn into an empty hallway is where I stop.

“Here will do.” It’s the first time I look at the guy I’m with properly, and under the harsh fluorescent lights, he’s stunning. Still, it plain pisses me off that he’s not who I want. “Get on your knees.”

“Give me a second, geez,” he teases, stepping forward to kiss me again as he undoes my shorts. He’s a great kisser too, dammit. I hate that I’m only enduring the kiss instead of getting to enjoy it.

Suddenly, the guy steps back. “Ah-Archibald Levine. Uh, hi.”

“Leave.” The deep, honey tone slides down my spine, and I jerk around, sure I’m hallucinating.

But no. Barely five feet away is the man I can’t get out of my mind.

Before I can stop him, the guy I’d been about to hook up with scrambles, only driving my irritation higher.

“Are you kidding me?” Definitely not the first words I ever thought I’d speak to him, but it’s bad enough he cockblocks me mentally—now he’s doing it for real as well?

“You’re the guy from last weekend” is all he says.

I study him for a second. “What are you talking about?”

With a well-practiced smirk, he opens one side of his robe, and I see a T-shirt tucked into the side of his swimming trunks.

My T-shirt.

He pulls it out and tosses it back to me.

“Caught my strip show, huh?”

Levine chuckles, all deep and rich sounding. “I don’t think there was a person at the party who missed it.”

“I have a good ass. Sue me.”

He doesn’t answer at first, and it catches my attention. His confident stare slowly trails over me, awakening the hum of possibility in my veins.

Is he … checking me out?

I’m a confident enough guy, but I know I’m not at his level. I have nothing at all for him to be interested in, nothing to offer him, but if that look means what I think it does, I’m not going to miss my chance.

“Why’d you scare my hookup off?” I ask, stepping closer before leaning casually against the wall beside us.

“I wanted to give your shirt back.”

“And you couldn’t wait to do that until after he’d sucked my dick?”

His tongue slides over his bottom lip. “Do that a lot, do you? Fuck random men?”

“Whenever I can.”

“Why?”

I snort because what kind of question is that? “I’m gay, and it’s hot. Why shouldn’t I?”

He shifts on his feet, and I swear the distance between us shrinks again.

My heart is going wild with expectation. My brain is still struggling to catch up with the fact Archibald Levine the Third is standing right in front of me in all his embroidered silver-and-navy robe, fake gold-crowned glory.

“Aren’t you afraid it will be spread around campus? That people will talk about you?”

“I hope they do. All the guys I’m with would have to say is what an excellent fuck I am, and I couldn’t think of better advertising than that.” Something twitches across his face, and instinct has me adding, “But I know how to be discreet when I need to be.”

“You? Discreet?” This time, Levine steps forward on purpose, and some of the confidence in his gaze slips. “You don’t remember what you said to me last weekend?”

Last weekend? Hoo boy, tequila did a number on me. “Why don’t you remind me?”

“You said …” He swallows, now looking firmly at the wall beside me. “I tried to give your shirt back then, but you, you said …”

“I’m listening.”

“That I could either have your shirt or a blow job. My choice.”

Jesus Christ. If I wasn’t so on edge about scaring him off, I’d laugh. Apparently, tequila also makes me an overconfident douche canoe. He’d clearly chosen to keep the shirt.

But …

I glance down at where the material is clutched in my fist, and then my gaze shoots right back to him.

There’s a moment of uncertainty in his eyes—the weirdest mix of blue-green I’ve ever seen in my life—as we both process what his giving me my shirt back means. This wasn’t him wanting to return it to its owner. He wouldn’t have told me the rest if it was.

Archibald Levine the fucking Third wants me to suck his dick.

Blood rushes to my head, but before I can say a thing, his lips are on mine. He presses against me, backing me into the wall, and I struggle to get my footing and kiss him back and stop from goddamn pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming again.

He lets out the most feral growl I’ve ever heard as his tongue licks into my mouth, and I pour all the desperate lust I’ve been bottling up into the kiss. It’s a frenzied mess of tongue and teeth as we both try to be the one in control and the other doesn’t let up. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else, but my hands can’t stop from diving into his perfect curls, knocking the plastic crown to the floor as I try to meld our motherfucking faces together.

I’m finally, finally, going to get this obsession out of my system.

Only when I dip one hand down between us, sliding over his impressive hard-on, Levine jerks back away from me. There’s half a hallway between us as he gasps through bite-puffy lips, “I’m drunk!”

“The fuck?”

“I’m drunk. I don’t know what I’m doing.” His cheeks are that glorious shade of red, but it doesn’t get me off like it normally does. Instead, my good mood crashes.

“You’re not drunk.”

“What the hell would you know?”

“More than you, apparently. We both know what you came here for. If you’ve changed your mind, fine, but don’t act like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

His glare fades on his handsome face. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

I sneer. “Tell that to your dick.”

A fresh flush races through him, down his neck to his broad chest, as he hurries to close the robe over the front of him. “It’s drunk too.”

Through my bitterness at the abrupt end, I figure out what’s going on here. Levine, despite his obvious curiosity, is closeted. Can’t hate a guy for that, but I can hate him for scaring my first hookup off because he wanted to play with me.

“Fine, whatever.” I roll my eyes. “You’re drunk. So drunk you’ve already forgotten who I am. I don’t care.”

The disappointment in his gaze is obvious, but I can’t fix it for him. It takes a full three seconds before he moves to leave, but I grab him before he can get far.

His whole body tenses, but I only lean in to hiss, “Word of advice: next time you want to get drunk , don’t chase off a guy’s sure thing. It’s a fast way to make him hate you.”

Levine tugs his arm out of my reach and leaves.

I’m left to watch the hottest ass I’ve ever seen walk away, dick not even close to waning after that disappointment.